Among President Uhuru Kenyatta’s main goals for his trip to the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York were to lobby world leaders for support in Nairobi’s on-and-off dispute with the International Criminal Court and to sell Kenya as an investment destination.

His charm offensive included addressing two breakfast meetings with American businessmen and a succession of one-on-one talks with leaders from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia Pacific over the one week.

Kenya’s domestic politics is increasingly having a bearing on the country’s foreign policy priorities and international interests, as the head of state took his crusade against the ICC to the international stage once again.

President Kenyatta took advantage of the UN meeting, which brings together more than 120 world leaders, to mount the second round of a diplomatic offensive against the ICC in an attempt to appease his disgruntled allies, who say he has abandoned his ally, Deputy President William Ruto.

The two leaders faced almost similar crimes against humanity cases in the court, which stemmed from the 2007/2008 post-election violence, but the president’s case was dropped in December for lack of evidence.

Mr Ruto recently suffered a major setback in his case when the Netherlands-based court allowed the Prosecutor to use recanted witness testimonies as evidence following changes to its rules of evidence procedure, ironically with the unwitting support of Kenya in 2013.

President Kenyatta already counts the support of the majority of African states, which constitute the largest voting bloc among members of the Rome Statute, but is keen on securing additional support from the Caribbean and Latin American nations, which have 27 votes, to amend the rule in the Assembly of State Parties next month.

Africa and Caribbean states have always maintained a sense of unity and solidarity and President Kenyatta sought to leverage Kenya’s historic ties with the West Indies to secure the crucial votes.

Kenya’s first chief justice, Cecil Miller, was Guyanese while Jamaican lawyer Dudley Thompson is credited with assembling a team of international legal minds to defend Kenya’s founding president Jomo Kenyatta, who was President Kenyatta’s father, at his trial during Kenya’s Independence struggle.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda assured President Kenyatta: “We promise you the support of Antigua and Barbuda as well as the whole of Caribbean Community and Common Market countries (Caricom).”

Similarly, Guyana’s President David Granger and the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves said they will rally the 15 Caribbean nations to support Kenya’s ICC stance.

President Kenyatta also took the opportunity to mend fences with old allies and establish friendships with other countries that traditionally do not usually appear on Kenya’s foreign policy radar. He held talks with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, Latvia’s President Raimonds Vejonis and the Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Loften.

Prime Minister Cameron last met President Kenyatta in May 2013 during the London Somalia Conference, but the event reportedly embarrassed Nairobi when it emerged that there would be no photo ops.